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Peacock adapting AfterShock comic 'Dead Day' from 'Vampire Diaries' and 'Scream' veterans
The show will take place on a special night when the dead come back to life in order to take care of unfinished business.
The dead will rise from their graves in a new supernatural drama coming to Peacock. The NBCUniversal-owned streaming service has placed a straight-to-series order for a small screen adaptation of AfterShock's Dead Day, a comic in which deceased individuals come back for one night in order to take care of unfinished business.
That's a pretty loose term, which covers everything from all-night celebrations to cold-blooded revenge. Think Pixar's Coco...just in reverse and with more violence. The comic — written by Ryan Parrott (on board as a consulting producer) and drawn by Evgeniy Bornyakov — was recently greenlit for a second volume.
Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and Kevin Williamson (creator of the Scream film franchise) have been tapped to serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. This is their second creative team-up after conceiving The Vampire Diaries, which ran on The CW for a total of eight seasons. Plec is also co-creator and co-showrunner on Peacock's upcoming YA project Vampire Academy.
"We have been looking for a project to do together and Dead Day has all the ingredients we love as storytellers. Love, death, thrills and tears — and we know Susan Rovner and her team at Peacock is the perfect fit for this project," they said in a joint statement.
“Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson are each a powerhouse unto themselves, so we couldn’t have been more excited when they told us they wanted to team up again,” added Vivian Cannon, EVP, Drama Development, Universal Television, in a statement. “Dead Day will be everything Julie and Kevin’s audiences love about their work — emotional, unexpected and totally bingeable!”
In terms of story, the supernatural drama "follows an ensemble of characters" as they navigate the night of resurrection.
“We realized because of Dead Day’s unique, universally appealing concept that this AfterShock Comic would capture the audience’s imagination worldwide. And none of this would be possible without this recognition from our amazing partners: Julie Plec, Kevin Williamson, Universal Television, Peacock and Ryan Parrott, the creator of Dead Day,” continued AfterShock Media’s Lee and Jon Kramer — both of whom are executive producers along with Ben Fast, Emily Cummins, and David Sigurani.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2020, Parrot admitted that the idea for the original comic was born out of the somber realizations that come with age. "Getting older means you start to lose the people you love," he explained. "I never got a chance to say goodbye to my grandparents before they passed and, I remember for months after their deaths, I would have these insanely vivid dreams were I simply got to talk with them for a few minutes, and then I’d wake up and they were gone. So I thought, what if that actually happened … but worldwide?"
Peacock & SYFY WIRE are both owned by NBCUniversal.
